Wiek Hijmans (1967) | electric guitar
Wiek Hijmans has played the electric guitar since the age of eleven. His interest in both classical and popular music instilled in him a lifelong passion for integrating the electric guitar in classical music.
Hijmans has been featured at the Holland Festivals “Night of the Electric Guitar” at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, as the “specialist in contemporary composed music for electric guitar”. Hijmans holds a Performing Musician’s Diploma from the Sweelinck Conservatory of Amsterdam and a Professional Studies Certificate from the Manhattan School of Music in New York City where he studied with David Starobin.
Wiek Hijmans is the recipient of several awards and prizes, including a Fulbright Grant and the Andres Segovia Award. He has made three internationally well-received solo CDs.
Wiek is a member of the David Kweksilber Big Band. He has a duo with violinist Peter Brunt, and he has been a member of the Maarten Altena Ensemble and it successors since 1991. Hijmans has performed solo recitals across the globe, including Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, China, Denmark, Poland, and multiple performances in the United States, Russia and Holland. He performed as a soloist with over ten symphony orchestras in Europe and the U.S.. He worked with John Zorn, the Giovanni Sollima Band, David Starobin, Butch Morris, Derek Bermel, Anthony Braxton, Scanner, Ernst Reijseger, Peter van Bergen, Maarten Altena, Roscoe Mitchell, the Ebony Band, Nick Didkovsky, Peter Kowald, and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Big Band.
Wiek is the artistic director of the Amsterdam Electric Guitar Heaven festival, and he initiated the commission for Contes Cruels, a composition for two electric guitars and orchestra by Tristan Murail, which won the prize for best french composition of the year 2007. The CD of Steve Mackey’s Dreamhouse, which features Hijmans’ electric guitar quartet CATCH, along with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Synergy Vocals, received a 2012 Grammy nomination.